Our family lived in a townhouse in the Ottawa suburbs. When our first daughter was seven we bought her a cat from the local pet shop, an orange tabby with a lot of large white spots. Most of his face was covered with white fur except for the forehead that was orange. The rest of the head was also orange looking like a hat. Most of his chest and legs were white, while most of the back and rear were orange. This unique combination of red and white made him stand out among the other cats in the pet shop. He was so cute when we first saw him, so we immediately decided to buy him.
We brought him home and let him out inside the house. At first he was scared and was hiding under the bed, but after a while he got acquainted with his new surroundings and accepted his new home. We called him Tiger, because he was orange and had stripes. He quickly gained the status of 'another member of the family' considering how much love and care he received from everybody. We let him out in the backyard and soon discovered that he was a type of cat who enjoyed outdoors, and preferred to do his business outside in spite of us trying to train him to use the litter box. In the years to come he periodically showed us his hunting skills by bringing home mice, birds and occasionally a rabbit.
While connecting to his wild side outdoors he behaved nicely inside the house: he did not climb on the kitchen table to steal food, did not knock out pots with plants, did not squeal at night. The only two drawbacks of his presence in the house were: he scratched the couch and left a lot of hair everywhere. But his positive effect on everybody in the family by far out-weighted his negative sides. Tiger interacted well with everybody in the family and made us better human beings. When our neighbours moved out and new neighbours moved in, we found out that they were also cat lovers and had three cats. Tiger became friendly with them and often visited their backyard. The owner of the house would feed Tiger at the backyard porch. The neighbour's cats were also welcome at our house and we fed them at our backyard porch.
Soon, the news of free food travelled to other dwellings, and we started to find new cats at our backyard porch. We offered them food and sometimes let them into the house. It was very interesting to observe the cats and discover that they had different characters just like humans. Some were shy and easily scared, others were outgoing and aggressive. Some liked people and responded well to petting, while others tried to fight the approaching human hand. Surprisingly, there were almost no fights over territory and all cats got along well. All, except one cat, an orange tabby with a blue collar.
He was shorter than Tiger, but well built and strong. We noticed that when this cat approached our backyard porch, Tiger would run to the window and start to growl at him. We made a mistake by letting out Tiger once and it resulted in very viscous fight. We thought that for some reason Tiger did not get along with this cat, may be due to incompatible characters. So after this incident when we saw this red cat again we chased him away from our backyard to avoid fights with Tiger. We decided that this red cat was a trouble-maker and it would be better to show him that he was not welcomed at our backyard. And this attitude toward the red cat had continued until the incident with the black cat.
One rainy afternoon, a friendly black cat came to our backyard looking for food. I gave him some food and he started eating. While he was eating I noticed that the red cat with blue collar entered our backyard. The black cat noticed this too but continued eating his food. On this day I felt generous and decided to offer some food for the red cat about a meter away from the black cat. As the red cat approached the food, the black cat turned away from his food, stared at the red cat and started to growl at him. Tiger was inside the house. When he heard the black cat growling, he came to the sliding door, stared at red cat through the glass and started to growl at him too, just like the black cat. They were growling at the red cat in unison. The red cat came closer to his food, and at this point black cat attacked him, chasing him away to the middle of backyard under the trampoline where they started fighting. I followed them in an attempt to break up the fight. When I opened the door, Tiger jumped out and joined the fight. When they saw and heard me approaching, they stopped fighting and red cat ran away from our backyard.
As I was returning home I felt sorry for the red cat. It looked like not only Tiger but other cats did not like him. But in this incident he did not do anything that could justify such reaction. He was just coming to get his food just like the other cat, but he was met with strong opposition. My attitude toward him changed, and I decided that I will not chase him away from the backyard, but will welcome him just like the other cats, hoping the other cats will pick up my attitude. Shortly after this, I went to the local store to buy some vegetable planters for the railings on my deck, and when I returned the rain has stopped. I stepped outside on the backyard porch, and saw red cat with blue collar eating the left over food alone. He looked at me with gratitude as if thanking for the change of attitude.